


Stolen Face

by Harlan_Malkavian



Series: Tinuviel, Ace shadowrunner [1]
Category: Shadowrun, Shadowrun: Dragonfall
Genre: Angry elf, F/F, set during APEX Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harlan_Malkavian/pseuds/Harlan_Malkavian
Summary: the group face the APEX.
Relationships: Female Protagonist/Monika Schäfer
Series: Tinuviel, Ace shadowrunner [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618669
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Stolen Face

**Author's Note:**

> just a quick plotbunny I had to pull out of my head and off my chest.

An elf, the long red ringleted hair crowning her head like a wild mane, cautiously step into the room followed by her misfit group, the lights begin to flicker and dim then one by one they die, and the room is slowly swallowed by a deep darkness.

"Could be nothing. Or it might be that APEX knows we're are here. Stay alert, folks." Eiger's voice comes out in a soft whisper, still felling so much loud in the pitch-black room.

Then suddenly an enormous screen in the wall opposite to the console cames to life and blind the group, the image dims. Coalesces. And a figure begins to take shape, the larger-than-life image of Monika Schäfer smiles down on Tinuviel, her cheeks dimplings.

"Hello, Tinuviel." her voice soft her musical just as she remembered. "It's lovely to see you again, Ace. I was hoping we'd get his chance to talk

"Monika?" her voice, small and weak, waver caught in the pain of that lovely face and wonderful voice, she had resigned to never hear again outside of that last recording on the group rewiev.

"That's right, Ace. It's me. I'm back" she paused for a moment examining the elf "You know, Tinuviel. It's wonderful to see how you have grown in my absence. I knew that you could handle yourself in a crisis... in fact. I originally brought you on board as a contingency plan. Did you know that? You were my ace in the hole just in case something like this happened." She let loose a short musical laugh "Well, maybe not *exactly* like this... but you get the idea."

"Don't listen to it, Tinuviel. That isn't Monika. It can't be" Eiger's grip tightens on the butt of the rifle, her voice harder and colder than her usual stoic, military one.

"I understand your reaction, Eiger, I really do. This must be difficult for you to understand"

"Who, or what, are you," you ask after a few long seconds, while you study her face on the giant monitor, so like her by also not, devoid of many of her usual mannerism and little movements

"I am Monika, your friend but also much, much more" Monika trademark smirk returns with her dimples, those damn dimples that made her fall so incredibly fast and hard for the blond human, it was tragedy waiting to strike and it did strike - _I still have so many years._

"Bullshit. This thing is lying to us, Tinuviel. And it's wearing Monika's face to do it" Eiger butt in, and deaf could hear the rage barely hidden in the tremble of her voice, the tremble of her closed fist, like a predator ready to strike.

"I promise you, Eiger, I am not lying. Monika - your Monika - is a part of me. I can prove it to you if you want."

"Tell me you're not listening to it, Tinuviel. This.. *thing*... is APEX. That's the only thing it can be."

"Let's hear your proof" Tinuviel ask, begging against hope that somehow her Monika had survived, downloaded herself and taken over APEX, but she knows, that's too good to be real.

"If that's what you want, Ace. Five years ago, Eiger confided un me. She told me why she left the KSK and why she can never go back The rookie on her squad was a disaster. He got her team killed. She told me what she did to the kid afterwards. How she wrapped her hands around his throat and *squeezed* until his eyes popped out of is sku..."

STOP!" Eiger's face has gone white as a sheet "stop talking right now."

you asked proofs and I offered it, never told she would have liked it" and that seal it, the last spark of hope dies again in Tinuviel's heart, her Monika would have never broken Eiger trust like that.

"And that tells me how far from Monika Schäfer you are, you may have stolen her memories and her face and her voice but you'll never get her soul, her heart or everything else that made her... her." Tinuviel voice was now darker and angrier that Eiger a few moments before. "You had hundreds of proofs to choose from, but you take one Monika would have never shared. You could have told that we were so much more than friends, you could have told how we meet. Bu no!" her hands closed tightly on her Colt M23

My Monika will never do come back, she will never hold me through the night and I will never feel her lips on mine ever again, not in this life." Tinuviel could hear her team reaction to that except Dietrich, he's already knows because he asked the right question. But she didn't cared, did nothing to stop the tears - _that fucking thing had to be this cruel_ -, even Glory for once don't act like the cold machine she turned herself to escape her error and horrors

Ace, please.

fuck this shit! We are here to delete you and that what gonna happen. You kill the love of my life and now I kill you!" then the image warped and change, instead of Monika they see something out of a nightmare

"good god, that's what Alice saw in the matrix"

"SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT. SUCH A WASTE. I HAD HOPED THAT YOU WOULD BE MY SALVATION. INSTEAD, YOU WILL BE MY PREY. RUN, LITTLE ELF. RUN, AND DIE." And that started a run against time and a fuckton of poor brainwashed bastards, with some big drones.

Strangely APEX couldn't stop Tinuviel from jack into the close console to activate the two turrets on the west, while they dispersed behind every cover available to fend off the waves of attackers from the east and protect the physical switches for the purge control it was a long and bloody affair, Tinuviel was feeling trapped in a old videogame from the 2010s she once found in the matrix... a genre that died out long ago, turret defence or something like that.

The elf didn't cared for APEX last-ditch effort to talk her out of that, she had her voice completely cut out and ignored because she couldn't bear to hear her Monika beg, even knowing how fake that was she didn't want to remember that, she worked so hard to forget the last moments of her life and overwrite them with their last night together a few hours earlier. At last, it was done, one last command and the killed AI died scared and screaming. Monika was avenged, with all the other decker APEX killed and eaten.

"Farewell my love, wait for me on the other side"

.


End file.
